


The Thorn In Your Paw

by Varynova



Series: The Insatiable Somnambulant [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Earth C (Homestuck), F/F, Not A Love Triangle I Hate Love Triangles, Post-Canon, discussion of alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-12 04:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20558111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varynova/pseuds/Varynova
Summary: It was only to offer her a spot in the chapbook, if she wanted it.Just to offer her a spot.What have you done?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to samanthaStarbreaker for beta reading this fic!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _'Was this, by turn, roman à clef?_   
_Whose hands belie this story's weft?_   
_Thoughts shattered on this lonesome eve_   
_Though for her mind we are bereaved_
> 
> _Were these but echoes from her chest?_  
_Like buxom angels smattered lest_  
_An idle pinky's hew and cry_  
_Should pin her down as she floats by..._
> 
> _But this sweet girl for emeralds named_  
_Should stay by story undefamed._  
_I have rendered here my pawn_  
_Undaunted by my wife anon.'_  
-Rose Lalonde, _The Chorus in Prelude_.
> 
> Content warning: This chapter contains discussions of alcohol and alcoholism.

Your name is Rose Lalonde. It's late in the evening, and the sun is just about to set on another perfect early-autumn day. Leaves from the great oak tree atop this hill eddy and gyre to their doom beneath your robin's egg ballet flats as you trudge daintily towards its zenith. Today you wore something simple, an orange T-shirt with a central blazon of your aspect and some high-waisted mom-jeans. Hanging from the most prominent bough of this tree is a weathered pair of ropes joindering a simple wooden plank, atop which Jade Harley-- in casualwear assembled to suggest her god-tier hood, tunic, and skirt-- is drifting her legs back and forth, swinging as she watches the sunset. With each pitch to and fro, her hair and the folds of her outfit billow in the unseasonable warmth of the breeze. So too do her dust-gray tail and stark white ears.

You use one hand to shade your eyes from the sun, the other coming to rest against the trunk of the deciduous behemoth. The dying amber rays of the day's end dapple the surrounding fields, the standing swaths of barley jutting up just beyond turned leaves layering the foot of the hill, bathing the whole thing in an eerie golden haze as though engulfed simultaneously in a deep Prospitian ocean and a countryside brushfire.

As she swings back, Jade turns her head to you to acknowledge your arrival, regarding you with otherwordly, verdant eyes.

ROSE: Hello, Jade.  
JADE: hi rose!  
ROSE: Thanks so much for coming out to meet me this evening. I hope you weren't otherwise occupied.  
JADE: oh, almost never!  
JADE: :D

You decide to ignore whatever the implications are for _that_ statement, instead pressing on with the offer of the evening, the reason for tonight's bivouac.

ROSE: I've put some thought into it, and I realized something.  
ROSE: The foremost criticism of me on this planet-- levelled by what can only be termed _vox populi_, the peanut gallery-- is the somewhat ludicrous notion that I spend far too much time with my own wife.  
ROSE: Silly, yes, but still something I've seen fit to respond to, and I've decided to do so in the most sensible way I can imagine.  
ROSE: I'm starting a poetry journal.  
JADE: wow!!  
JADE: thats pretty cool heheh

Jade giggles, lips drawn back from her prominent front teeth as her shoulders jog with momentary merriment.

ROSE: Risible, I know. And yet, the most compelling option I can come up with that doesn't involve blowing sundry holes in exoplanetary objects out of sheer boredom.  
JADE: :o  
JADE: that actually sounds kinda fun!!  
ROSE: I'm aware.  
JADE: but poetry huh??  
JADE: cant say ive ever read much of your poetry!  
ROSE: Oh, I know. I keep it fairly close to my chest, because frankly, I doubt its quality and doubt the interest of any onlookers.  
ROSE: And yet, when I mentioned it to said matriorb-and-chain, she was nothing short of fully supportive, even knowing that it would drain some of my resources away from our mutual tasks and...  
ROSE: Diversions.  
JADE: see rose  
JADE: ive always thought of kanaya as so slick and everything  
JADE: but she always gives off this aura of...  
ROSE: If you are about to say 'sangfroid demeanor,' I must caution you--  
JADE: i promise you rose i was not about to say zangfwaaa. :p  
She approximates the pronunciation admirably, save drawing out the last ellision long past that demanded by the original French. Her soft pink tongue prods between cleft lips, a gesture drastically too intimate for the scenario. But she doesn't cease swinging, up and down, so you turn your visage aside and attempt to conceal any secondhand embarrassment or uncontrollable blush.  
JADE: try  
JADE: of being down to earth!

You blink.  
ROSE: Regardless I wanted to extend the offer to contribute, if you felt capable and at liberty to share any work you would like to.  
JADE: uhh  
JADE: i appreciate the offer rose?  
JADE: but ive...  
JADE: never written a line of poetry in my whole life?  
ROSE: Hence exactly why I thought to seek you out.  
ROSE: I'd like a panoply of voices, a sheer diversity of forms, opinions, modes.  
ROSE: You struck me as the most likely to inflect a more sentimental, naturalistic, freeform tone than I myself can approach.  
ROSE: And, frankly, I haven't any other contributors on board yet, and was hoping to build more support among our deific cohort to attract laypersons interested in the craft.  
JADE: you want me to write poetry about nature...  
JADE: so you can convince our friends to write some too?  
ROSE: Something to that effect.

Jade laughs again, at length this time. Her ruby-heeled feet skid across the ground, bringing a caesura to her downward arc, and she cocks her doggish head.

JADE: was that all you asked me to come here for??  
ROSE: I'll admit that it was a concern that could, upon further consideration, have been relayed by text, if that's what you're asking.  
JADE: not quite!  
JADE: whyd you ask me to set up this whole scenario on this silly hilltop if thats the case??  
ROSE: I...

You wanted it to be picturesque. It felt like a scene you needed to set, sea of grain below you in the soft evening light. Alright, lamentably enough you probably could have seen the folly of this ahead of time had you considered the way Jade was likely to react to it all, but truthfully? It makes a better narrative, and you have always been a sucker for a clean and sensible narrative.

ROSE: I thought you might enjoy the view.  
JADE: yep!!  
JADE: as i have the other times ive been up here :p  
ROSE: Maybe it makes for a better story, though?  
ROSE: For the journal.

Jade pauses for a moment, blinks her humongous peepers.  
JADE: would you like to swing with me?  
JADE: if it makes for a better story

You look around the perimeter of the looming bower.  
ROSE: But... there's only the one swing.  
JADE: yep!

You shrug.

Jade is simply larger than you, in every dimension, and you notice it immediately upon planting yourself in her lap. Even were she standing she'd be a whole head taller than you; hell, you're fairly sure her seat-length, obsidian-black hair alone has more volume than does your entire body. The outfit she's wearing, soft and billowing loose around her limbs and trunk, practically envelops you the moment you rest your body against her own, warm and inviting like bedtime after a long, sweaty day. Her long legs, still covered in her sheer gray-and-black-striped tights, kick in languid time, as if to suggest motion to the mouldering board supporting you both, but you can feel from the momentary disconnect between forward force and the sway of your companion that she's instead impulsing you forward with her space-powers and that the rest is simply an excuse to move her body, flow with the universe.

Her arm wraps around you. You realize now-- far too late to stave it off, especially in the eyes of a discerning public apt to consume narratives dually composited of women-loving-women content as well as storytelling so metaanalytically inserted up its own rectal cavity that without a doubt the metaphor-- that you, with your charming wife at home, relationship structure undiscussed within the damnable composition of this piece, sitting in the lap of the eros-driven canine woman with whom you have had, canonically, perhaps three conversations prior, in a literal swingset (i.e. _swinging_, that most despicable of heterocentricities)-- that this scene could be seen as infidelitous or improper, if not characteristically then certainly to the sanctity of your vows.

Jade's voice, however, breaks you out of a mental Charybdis so deep it required nested em-dashes.

JADE: do you ever think about how none of us are really getting any older, in the grand scheme of things?  
ROSE: I try my best not to.  
JADE: really?? cuz i think its  
JADE: well i think its the best thing ever!!  
ROSE: Truthfully? It terrifies me.  
ROSE: What on earth could that mean, if we're beings without a set lifespan, without expectations placed on us from... biology, our peers in society, or any external pressures at all?  
ROSE: Art flourishes under constraints, after all.  
JADE: see, why do you always talk like that??  
JADE: you said years ago that none of us have arcs per se  
JADE: then you talk like we're all just mutts in a dog show!!  
JADE: i mean were old enough to drink now  
JADE: or would be if old earths united states drinking ages were still in effect  
JADE: heck, ive thought about it but i think i dont quite get it as a social activity??  
Jade's free hand meets her chin as her train of thought floats away from mixed-metaphor station and off into the subdued evening clouds.  
JADE: rose, have you ever drank?  
You feel your eyes grow to the size of fiendish saucers. How _dare_ she?  
ROSE: ...JADE.  
JADE: oh

Her legs freeze up in midair, but the continued force of your ascent sails you up to the apex regardless. She speaks, her voice nebbish, contrite.  
JADE: ohhhhhhh  
JADE: turds  
JADE: sorryyy sorry sorrysorry

Your torso crumples forward slightly with the sudden descent, as though all air had been sucked from your body in one heaving burst. Jade's arm keeps you upright, but you are all but stonefaced, entombed in your mortification.

How could she have forgotten? How could she not know? The years you lost, the failures you endured, the scorn and pity heaped on you. You recall with perfect clarity every deflected glance or downcast face shown by your meteorbound compatriots, their contempt clear for your execrable weakness. Even though you-- quite thankfully-- got to elide those experiences yourself, you remember every broken minute the other Rose suffered through, and are deftly aware of how quickly you could have sunk back into patterns narrowly avoided but for the influence of a certain miscreant. In fact, without her return, you question grimly whether or not the modern you-- perhaps a bit restless with a somewhat-stilted life of beach parties, recreational reading, and dates with the wife in the carapace kingdom-- would ever escape its alluring depths again.

Or would want to.

She holds her hands over her mouth while you grimace. But your expression softens to a mere scowl as you gaze into the middle distance.  
JADE: i  
JADE: im  
JADE: rose im really sorry i really didnt mean to say that  
JADE: but im turning 21 in like 14 weeks and i just  
JADE: i dont know anything about how it all works or why people would...  
JADE: sorry :(  
ROSE: ...Well, you weren't there.  
ROSE: You had to be told, rather than having to watch my ignominy firsthand, so I can't really blame you for putting your foot in this particular cow pie.  
ROSE: Though it is rather a spectacularly sizable one for you to find in such a gorgeous field.  
JADE: i shouldve known better!!  
JADE: cmon jade!!!

You swallow the word 'yeah', instead settling for a hand on her forearm, guiding it back around your stomach. Jade renews the gentle movement of the swingset beneath you.

In trying to get her off of this line of self-flagellation, you attempt to turn her to a more titillating subject of conversation, only realizing as it leaves your lips exactly what it might connote.

ROSE: So when was the last time you...  
ROSE: Went on a date?  
Crap. Here's hoping she doesn't take it the wrong way.

Jade practically sputters.  
JADE: a date???  
JADE: i...  
JADE: ...hrmm  
JADE: are we talking like  
JADE: just for funzies?  
JADE: orrrr do you mean like  
JADE: trying to find somebody to  
You've dug yourself into this hole already, Lalonde. Why not simply etch out another square of bog peat with which to further muddy your boots?  
ROSE: Out of prurience, let's say the latter. Let's say 'twoo wuv' is the vague stakes.

JADE: ...never  
JADE: if thats what youre asking  
JADE: ive never been on a date like that

_Fuck._

Her voice is strangely quiet, less strangled and more... plaintive, focused, like a scrabbling mouse caught in the beams of a headlamp.

ROSE: How...  
ROSE: Pardon for asking, but how is that the case?  
ROSE: You...  
ROSE: I was led to believe you sought partners quite... thoroughly. And...  
ROSE: You lived with my brother for five years.

Jade's chin comes to rest at the crown of your hair, and you take a deep, sodden breath in time with the rise and fall of her chest against your back.

JADE: rose  
JADE: no

She says no more because she doesn't need to. It practically smolders like a molten stabwound in your chest, as if to say, _'i never dated dave or karkat, even though i tried and i clearly overpressured both of them far too much for things they did NOT want with me and overstayed my welcome, thus casting me out into loneliness on this paradise planet'_. Not to brag, but you're fairly certain you take her meaning in precisely its intended fashion. Perhaps if you are truly lucky the ground will open its maw and Jade will offer up your body to it, for surely you can both agree that the planet ought just to swallow you whole.

You snake your folded torso to one side, attempting to wrench eye contact with Jade out of the piteous turns of your body. And you are able to fit your five-foot-five frame inside her arms such that you can see her face, take in the truly hurt look she delivers to you as she screws up her mouth for an instant.

Then she lets it go, jaw releasing with a low sigh.

JADE: its  
JADE: ...  
JADE: its fine?

She averts her eyes.

JADE: its nothing new

Your hand meets her shoulder, bunching the black fabric between your short fingers.  
ROSE: I'm so, so sorry, Jade.  
ROSE: You deserve so much better than this.  
ROSE: Better than this hellish, unfair universe.  
ROSE: (Better than my brother, without question.)  
ROSE: You deserve the whole world.  
JADE: rose...  
She grumbles your name, almost complaintive, but as you slide your flattened palm by her collarbone to rest in the center of her chest, she snorts a laugh, dogbreath hot against the side of your neck, underneath your fresh-trimmed summer hair.

And you have no idea who goes for it, but frantically her lips are at yours, flesh-hot, melting away the wax of your feigned indifference as you reciprocate deeply, messily. Your hand groups a swath of her tunic to drag her closer, to let you smell the faint taste of cherry at her lips and smear breathless, incredulous lipstick across her cheek.  
JADE: rose!!

She sounds more surprised-- delighted?-- than taken aback. It takes a moment to realize exactly what you've just done. Your diminutive lungs heave suddenly for air.

Was it the thing you had dreamt of since your first blooming crush at 13? Gods, yes. You'd dreamt of those lips, the curls, the eyelashes and shouldershakes and the way she would bend down to meet you, all those years ago... and attraction you had thought fallow burst forth from slumbering seedlings once more the instant she offered you a seat nestled against her body. It roils in your stomach... no, not the passion, something else, far more ambiguous and lurking, something bilious and estranged.

You-- you could go back for more. But... but you have a wife, goddammit, and sometimes personal passions... No, this is what you want. This fire in your gut, the burning in your belly, it urges you to try again, to lock lips with Jade once more and smear your hands across every--

No. Sometimes passions need to be kept in tow because it's more than possible to wrong not just yourself or your paramour in this sort of fucking tryst, but to--

Kanaya. What would Kanaya say? You stiffen your arm, holding you away from Jade's chest, and she falters.

The sun has fallen entirely below the horizon, now, last amethyst tendrils slithering untraceably thereafter. Jade-- looming huge, consuming your whole view, now, flushed and breathing heavily, mouth open-- simply watches you, trying to understand, to prise meaning from your thoroughly disordered behavior.

ROSE: I...

Jade's eyes are closed as she leans towards you again. Just another inch and you could--

ROSE: I have to go.

You spring from her lap, uncoiling from her arms like a spinning bullet, and with nothing but muddled, blown thoughts churning in your head you dash off of the hill and launch into the quiet nighttime air. You can barely hear Jade's last muttered word as you surge off into the distance.  
JADE: ...crumbs


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _'These Chainsaw Filaments_  
_Dance In My Dreams_  
_The Cogwise Razor's Edge Of_  
_Utter Sanguine_  
_Potentiality.'_  
-Kanaya Maryam, _Lipstick Poem_.
> 
> _'Segment Burns Of Lipstick Tears_  
_From Whose Containment Burst My Years_  
_What Languor Weeping Stays My Arms_  
_And Saves Those Fiends From Coming Harm'_  
-Kanaya Maryam, _Chainsaw Poem_.
> 
> Content warning: This chapter contains discussions of food, eating habits, and alcoholism.

In the sky between the Human and Troll Kingdoms, the stars barely begin to alight and twinkle as you stream back to your home. You hope the short flight will somehow renew your composure, hide the juddering at your shoulders and the streaked tear-paths adorning the outsides of your eyes, but when you catch sight of the cozy reading lamp's glow billowing out the porchside door from just beside the couch, casting its warm dominion over the littlest piece of the outside world, your mind keels and rushes with a jumbled knot of words with which you are going to have to confront your wife.

You stand at your balcony, concrete a tundra at the bottoms of your bare feet. You hold your little blue flats in your hand, but hesitate to come inside, especially as your wife-- darling, sweet Kanaya, merciful Kanaya, you hope-- is around the other side of the table in her comfy, fluffy pink PJs, the ones that button down the middle with the adorable little white ducks smattered and spun around the fitted pants and the...  
She's pointing an accusatory finger at you.

KANAYA: Rose Lalonde  
KANAYA: Confess  
ROSE: I...  
KANAYA: What Has Happened To The Brownies That Were In This Tin  
KANAYA: I Was Hoping To Save At Least One For My Evening Tea  
ROSE: I ate them.  
ROSE: Oh, goddesses, Kanaya, I ate them all.

Kanaya laughs, perhaps misreading this as another instance of your desert-dry wit.

KANAYA: What Tragedy Befell Your Evening Which Demanded  
KANAYA: Three Entire Brownies  
KANAYA: They Were Even The Robust Sort  
KANAYA: With Nuts And Chocolate Chip Toppings And All  
ROSE: I'm sorry!  
She sighs, dropping character when she sees you failing to put up your usual repartee.

KANAYA: Pish Tosh Rose  
KANAYA: They Were But Brownies  
KANAYA: Do Come Inside Already  
KANAYA: I Shall Make More

She turns, but hesitates, sensing you still lingering at the jamb.

KANAYA: I Promise I Am Not Actually  
She gazes over a shoulder.  
KANAYA: Angry

While you doubt very much that she will continue to hold that sentiment even outwardly for much longer, you step in. You slide the door easily closed with a distracted hand, but when Kanaya does not feel your body abut her own from behind-- a bit of a ritual you've developed, when one wife or the other should arrive home late at night-- she turns to look at you as you pad uneasily towards the kitchen for a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge.

KANAYA: I Sincerely Do Not Intend To Interrogate Your Eating Habits  
KANAYA: I Welcome You To Talk About The Course Of Your Evening  
KANAYA: Should You Need To Rose

The murky waters of your recriminations slam the sluice of your conscious mind, practically flooding your mouth with contrition and sorrows. But no, you must approach this correctly; do not allow Kanaya to shoulder the burden for this, for your emotions must be yours alone to grapple.

She'll have enough of her own once you lay yourself bare.

ROSE: I have made a terrible mistake.

Kanaya's eyebrow quirks, manifesting the visage she presents when she must harden herself to the world, to the words of her loved ones. You've seen it before, yes, but only rarely pointed at you. You press on.

ROSE: My consultation with Jade went...  
ROSE: Well, as you recall, I had asked Jade to meet me on that picturesque hillock out by the Human kingdom farmsteads, at the boundary between Neocalifornia and the Troll regions.  
ROSE: I'm not sure why I even picked that one, I suppose, save that it always seemed like the best place to overlook a funeral, or from which to exchange secret documents or some other form of scintillating scuttlebutt.

Kanaya has tilted her head, not in consternation but rather failing to see the relevance of these details. Rose, you must focus. Task at hand.

ROSE: ...Right. She was receptive to my offer of a spot in the journal, I think. We talked for a good while, she mentioned support for the project, and interest even as she asked likewise why I had decided to stage our interlocution where I had. To which I responded...  
KANAYA: What Has She Done To Distress You So

You feel your incisors grate.  
ROSE: She had put up the swing, just as I'd asked. And she took to it, and offered me a spot to swing alongside her.  
KANAYA: Alongside  
ROSE: Alright, in her lap. She asked me to sit in her lap.  
KANAYA: !  
ROSE: And I assented. And we swung for a while, and talked further, and our physical proximity was in fact as approximate as it could possibly be reckoned...  
KANAYA: Rose If You Are Saying What I Believe You Are  
KANAYA: (And I Comprehend Your Particular Discomfort But I Must Understand)  
KANAYA: Please Do Simplify This For Me  
KANAYA: What Did Jade Do  
KANAYA: _Precisely_

You rub your arm, gaze falling away from Kanaya. She makes a good point, you suppose, that if you circumlocute too efficaciously around this particular boondoggle...

No. This is your fault, Rose Lalonde. Take ownership of it.

ROSE: She kissed me.

Dammit.

KANAYA: Did She Now  
ROSE: I was overwhelmed!  
KANAYA: Did She Overwhelm You  
ROSE: I... felt like I didn't have control of the situation, certainly.  
KANAYA: Did You Not Have A Say In The Matter  
ROSE: That's not what I mean!  
KANAYA: Well What Precisely Do You Mean  
ROSE: I mean that I was caught off guard by it all! As if the gates swung open on the cage containing my evening and I was suddenly face to face with a grizzly bear!

Kanaya's teeth square up, pointed canine-analogues abutting the gleaming lower row of her vampiric dentata. Her hands are at her sides, clenched into themselves, and her voice, usually so throaty and brash, is cold, almost tinny.

KANAYA: It Seems As Though Perhaps  
KANAYA: I Ought Visit Jade Myself  
KANAYA: Im Afraid Rose Your Retelling Of Events Is Making  
KANAYA: Relatively Little Sense  
KANAYA: Save What I Can Discern As  
KANAYA: Deeply Improper Conduct From An Erstwhile Friend  
KANAYA: Towards My Wife  
Oh, _shit_.  
ROSE: No!

You shift a foot forward. You ball your fist. You look your wife in the eyes.

ROSE: Kanaya, no. Please, stop. This was all my fault.  
ROSE: I... I was the one who set up the meeting with her, I asked her to join me at that exact spot, I requested she come on the business of what I had thought would be making a straightforward offer for her to contribute to my poetry journal.  
You feel the tears well in the inner corners of your eyes before you can stop them, but you scrunch your nose, trying to dispel the ghoulish notion you've allowed to take hold in your wife's mind.  
ROSE: But when I got there I realized that I had clearly wanted, on some level...  
Kanaya watches you babble, eyes steady, impassive as they gaze into your own.  
ROSE: No. Let me attempt this more succinctly.  
ROSE: Jade didn't behave improperly, or act on anything more than my wishes.  
ROSE: _I_ kissed _her_.  
KANAYA: Oh  
KANAYA: Ohhhhhh  
KANAYA: I See

In an uncharacteristic moment of unkempt reaction, Kanaya's mouth hangs slightly ajar, and she blinks several times, before her hands rejoin, clasped in front of her waist. Those several seconds of monstrous silence are enough for your stomach to engage in grotesque acrobatics, turning and churning with desultory dread.

KANAYA: So When You Disclosed Immediately Prior That It Had Been Her Doing  
KANAYA: That Was A Falsification  
ROSE: Yes. Sort of? I can't tell. No, she was definitely there.  
ROSE: And she was definitely... helping.  
KANAYA: A Sin Of Omission Then  
KANAYA: Albeit One That Caused Me To Believe That She  
KANAYA: Hmm  
KANAYA: Well In That Case I Must Demand  
KANAYA: That You  
KANAYA: As The Humans Say

Kanaya's set shoulders soften, fingers unfurling to release their clutched acrimony. Even from here you can see the small green rings in her palms where long nails dug in, restlessly.

KANAYA: Dish  
KANAYA: Give Me The Tea  
KANAYA: As It Were  
KANAYA: For In Times Such As These I Believe It Is My Right As Your Partner To Request Such A Disquisition

Your posture melts likewise.  
ROSE: You're not... angry with me?  
ROSE: Are you going to be if I give more salacious details? How is that not going to...  
ROSE: I don't know. Make you jealous, I suppose.

Your wife flips her hair.  
KANAYA: Were I Feeling Jealousy At The Moment It Would Be Rather From The Idea That You Felt This Needed Be Withheld From Me  
KANAYA: The Notion That You Might Lie About Your Whereabouts Or With Whom You Were Trading Saliva Is A Much More Pressing Concern Than The Exchange Itself  
KANAYA: Though Certainly It Is Possible That If You Disclose Your Motivations As Lacking Fulfillment With Our Romantic Life Together Then Perhaps I Will Be  
KANAYA: Hurt  
ROSE: No! Sweetheart, I would bring such a concern to you in an instant before I could ever...  
ROSE: No.  
KANAYA: Then It Was A Sudden And Vigorous Encounter With  
KANAYA: An Old Crush Perhaps  
KANAYA: The Sort You Could Not Be Faulted For Realizing Upon Its Clear Reciprocation  
She raises an eyebrow.  
ROSE: Possibly. I'm not sure I would call that faultless, but without a doubt it was the case.  
KANAYA: Fair Enough  
KANAYA: And It Is Likely I Will Continue To Be Cross With You Regardless  
KANAYA: However  
KANAYA: If Our Relationships Parameters Are Not A Threat To Our Happiness Then It Is A Much Less Immediate Issue And I Will Take Much Less Personal Offense

You slump against the corner of the couch by the window, almost laugh-coughing from sheer stress, as though your stomach has been released on the end of a bungee cord to dangle heedlessly over the pit of your intestines.  
ROSE: If it makes you feel better...  
ROSE: I was thinking about you the whole time.  
You see Kanaya's mouth crack into the slightest smile, but she keeps an admirable rein on it.  
KANAYA: Fine  
KANAYA: Tell Me Everything  
ROSE: Well...

Kanaya sits pertly on the ottoman opposite you, and you detail matter-of-factly the occurrences between Jade and yourself. To her credit, Kanaya expresses her discomfort regarding what specifics she dislikes at each turn, particularly when you detail your concerns about the possible ease with which you could return to alcoholism, or Jade's assertion that she is merely 'down to earth'. Otherwise she is as patient and calm as you could ask for; god, even when you know she's mad at you you can't help but be a dopey-eyed love-puppy around your wife.

ROSE: ...Then, when I realized precisely what my actions had entailed, what they signified, I just did... the most acrobatic fucking pirouette possible from her arms, and hurried back here at my maximum airspeed.  
KANAYA: Well Then  
KANAYA: I Am Gratified To Hear It Was Mutual  
ROSE: That surprises me, I suppose. Though I didn't do a very good job of convincing you otherwise at the start.  
ROSE: Not that I was trying to dissuade anyone of the notion; nor would I ever consider Jade the sort to overpower anybody. She's not built for it.  
KANAYA: She Is Six Feet Three Inches Tall  
ROSE: Is she? How on Earth C could you possibly know that?  
KANAYA: Never Second Guess The Powers Of A Spacebound Hero  
KANAYA: Or Perhaps I Measured Her For A Dress Some Years Ago  
KANAYA: Here Is Where I Would Place A Trail Of Finish Crumbs Were I So Inclined  
KANAYA: In Any Case Perhaps Your Unexpectedly Sullen Homecoming Set Me In An Inauspicious Mindset For It

Despite your wife's accusatory tone, you snort with laughter.  
ROSE: What did you expect me to do? Kanaya, I'd thought I had cheated on you!  
ROSE: Just traipse through the door, lope over to the couch, drape myself on the chaise with indignity?  
ROSE: Start quoting Sappho? "Sweet Kanaya, I cannot weave/Paradox Space has overcome me with longing/for a girl."  
KANAYA: It Would Be A Far Cry From All This Guilt Tinged Regret Nonsense  
Her smile curdles.  
KANAYA: Perhaps Even Preferable  
ROSE: I hope you don't think too much less of me for all this.

Kanaya folds her arms, curled upper lip becoming more pronounced as she runs her tongue beneath it.  
KANAYA: Really Now Rose  
KANAYA: There Is Truly Only One Condition By Which You Could Disappoint Me As My Wife And Partner In This Case  
KANAYA: Do Not Tell Me You Were Intending To Indulge Her In  
KANAYA: A Love Triangle  
ROSE: Never!  
ROSE: Darling Kanaya, I could never. I _would never_. At the very least because I know it'd splatter my vena cava across the dining table to even consider a dip into that clandestine _ménage à trois_ nonsense.  
KANAYA: And Who Would Be Forced To Clean That Up  
ROSE: Well, in this scenario, either you or Jade, apparently. You might have to flip her for it.  
KANAYA: You Doubt I Would Have The Strength To  
KANAYA: Flip Her  
ROSE: Quite not. Though now that you mention I do rather prefer the notion to a game of chance.

Your hands ring together as you rewet your lips.  
ROSE: But... How can you say you're not angry!?  
ROSE: I've fucked this all up!!  
KANAYA: You Have Not  
KANAYA: 'fucked this all up'.  
KANAYA: Certainly Not Our Relationship  
KANAYA: And Most Likely Not Even Your Friendship With Jade  
KANAYA: It Sounds As Though You Got Caught Up In The Moment  
KANAYA: And Overzealously Rationalized To Yourself How The Things That Were Happening Were Not Romantic  
KANAYA: Until They Were  
KANAYA: Then How They Were Okay  
KANAYA: Until They Werent  
KANAYA: You  
KANAYA: Sweet Wife  
KANAYA: Are Allowed To Get Swept Up And Make Mistakes  
ROSE: That sounds...  
ROSE: Suspiciously like forgiveness, but I'm not sure you should offer that to me so easily.  
ROSE: Especially if you're not positive that you can do so sincerely.  
ROSE: Maybe you deserve to be unhappy with me about this, because it was very silly of me, and brash likewise.

Kanaya points a claw at herself.  
KANAYA: Remember With Whom You Are Speaking  
KANAYA: Do Not Gut Yourself For Following Your Passions  
KANAYA: And Letting The Worlds Beauty Lead You Where It May

She points at you, in a manner you would be convinced was accusatory were it not for the softness of her face, and the unrelenting positivity you fear she is about to unpen in your direction. Instead, the mild fingerwags for emphasis feel comfortingly maternal, returning precisely to the Kanaya you've known and loved for these eight long years.  
KANAYA: Rose  
KANAYA: I Come From A Culture In Which This Sort Of Behavior  
KANAYA: Were It Codified As A Different Form Of Attraction Than Our Own  
KANAYA: Would Be Perfectly Just And Sanctified  
KANAYA: Merely Because You See Yourself As The Necessary Object Of My Sole Affections Does Not Mean You Cannot Feel Desire For Other People  
KANAYA: Or Even Act On It  
KANAYA: But You Must Take My Needs Into Consideration  
KANAYA: And I Am Glad You Stopped Upon The Realization That You Were Not Doing So  
You nod mutely.

KANAYA: But Please  
KANAYA: Do Not  
KANAYA: Ever Do This Again  
ROSE: Of course! God, no. Of course.  
ROSE: But as for Jade...  
ROSE: Would you prefer that I--  
KANAYA: I Am Rather Beleaguered By This Evenings  
KANAYA: Affairs  
You almost cringe, and Kanaya's smile widens as her lips go thin.  
KANAYA: And I Should Much Rather Adjourn To Bed  
KANAYA: Would You Care To Join Me  
KANAYA: Or Will You Be Staying Up A While Longer  
ROSE: I could... do with some rest, I think.  
You follow her as she moves towards your mutual bedroom, move through the door as she holds it open for you, beckons you in.  
KANAYA: As For The Question At Hand  
KANAYA: Let Us Pursue That Notion Come Morning  
KANAYA: Indeed I Believe You Should Pursue More Than Merely The Notion  
KANAYA: Come Sufficient Terms Of Agreement  
KANAYA: I Merely Ask  
She wraps you in her arms, her forgiveness flowing over you like warm waves, like a freshly-dryered topsheet.  
KANAYA: Tell Me First Next Time  
KANAYA: Please  
ROSE: Of...  
ROSE: Of course, my love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: The story so far has obliquely referenced the most popular poetic works of William Carlos Williams, Seamus Heaney, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Burns, and contains a direct reference to Sappho. Can you find them all? :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _'Stalk, stalk!_  
_Through reedstalks I creep, deathstalk in repose_  
_And for equal measures of bloodlust I have reigned_  
_For without my sweet prey's remittance_  
_My body will stay lean and boned and sinewy._  
_Deerstalk among drake weed and through thrush rushes and cattails at water's edge by midnight._  
_Stalk.'_  
-Jade Harley, _Stalk!_, with help from Rose Lalonde.

ROSE: Jade.  
ROSE: About last night...  
JADE: its fine  
JADE: it happened but we dont have to talk about it  
JADE: not now not ever  
JADE: like i said im used to it  
ROSE: May I come over?  
JADE: ...  
JADE: sure thats fine  
JADE: if youd really like to talk about it fine

You have just finished your morning coffee date at the New Outglut Coffee Roasters, at which you shared the first Frosted Fenestrations of the season with your wife. You kissed her on the cheek, she reassured you she wouldn't need your assistance at the brooding caverns 'til the afternoon at the earliest, and you thanked her again for helping you navigate the particular thorny bramble that is human affection.

Then you sent three texts to Jade, and sighed at the response.

Close your eyes. Dream in birdsong. Bow your knees in a soft _plié_, and thrust one arm into the sky.

You cloudburst from the tile patio in front of the café to the bewilderment of the other patrons.

From this vantage point, in the frigid jetstream above New Outglut, you can hear the quailing of the tree in your front yard. While Earth C didn't import much flora from Alternia-- too much of it is disagreeable to passersby, at least those amenable to keeping all their limbs-- your wife did insist on keeping a particularly phantasmagorical specie in your front lawn, a hulking, dead-looking thing, as tall as your hive with great drawn hollows in the front reminiscent of ghoulish, eyeless faces. When the wind passes by it on a pronouncedly wuthering day like today, it moans with ghastly torpor, wood creaking like insect-weakened joists imminently to collapse upon your domicile.

You love it. Your inner goth-- and your outer goth, likewise-- appreciate with silent touch the groaning monstrosity each time you pass it by. You pretended at protest when she brought up the idea of darkening your doorstep with this particular whinging willow, but she understood your secret excitement, knew you shared her aesthetic appreciation for the thing down to your marrow. God, you love your wife.

Freaks the hell out of visitors, though.

You course due east, breezing through the beachfront air and cruising over the ocean on an agreeable zephyr towards Jade's island. You consider quite frequently how odd it is that you're able to fly. It's been a veritable truth of your life since you were 13, and most of your friends merely accept their capacity for it as a gift, but you've always struggled to understand. Why is it that you-- given a traffic-cone colored outfit and ballet shoes, twee rainbow planet, and powers of eversight and blasé _knowing_\-- gained the ability to fly? Certainly doesn't mesh with the rest of the skillset. Maybe it was Skaia's tightlipped apology for drenching you in the feculent unicorn's blood that was your private 'quest'.

Jade's island is recognizable from a great distance, if you know the signs. While she elected not to carry over her childhood home-- and the accompanying orb-topped tower-- the home she built instead, with its winding, uneven extremities, outgrowths, and jutting, pointed spires, carries on top a great, mechanical orrery in constant, imperceptible motion. Who knows what lies in the other layers of her grand manor, dilapidated as it is in thick layers of dust and choking ivy? But the methodical way Jade clearly upkeeps this brass behemoth, the love she pours into its workings and function-- it's just so incongruous to the disrepair of the rest of the edifice.

Indeed, she stands on her roof now, clothed in a floorlength, velvet gown, black, but barely tinged with her signature green color amid the fabric. Did she put this on especially for you? Perhaps she just dresses like this even on days when she expects nobody to see her, when she presumes she will not be witnessed.

Almost unconsciously, you begin your perfunctory, grand entrance. You align your shadow with her on the ground, casting yourself in a radiant sunburst, a radical and private eclipse for her perusal. She shades her eyes, and you float down, the black skirt and pink ribbon of your attire flapping in the vigorous winds.

You ought to say something stunning, something alluring and dark, portentious.  
ROSE: I like your dress.  
Close enough.  
JADE: thanks  
JADE: its just any old thing i guess  
ROSE: It flows well. I like the, uh.  
You swallow. The air is surprisingly dry, up here, even so close to the ocean.  
ROSE: The curves of it, it suits you; it's flattering.

Jade shifts uncomfortably, dragging an unclad foot across the rocky stonework edge of her rooftop.  
JADE: so uh  
JADE: what brings you here today?  
JADE: it seemed like you wanted to talk about last night....  
ROSE: Aah, yes. You'll have to forgive my equivocation. I was very much so not prepared for a conversation of this sort so soon after my morning coffee.  
JADE: haha take your time!  
While her smile matches the tone of what she's saying, it doesn't reach her eyes, green spheres never quite losing their besotten edge.

ROSE: So, uh.  
ROSE: I guess I've never really thought to ask before, but...  
You raise an arm past Jade.  
ROSE: This is gorgeous machinery. How does it work? Is it wound, or gravity-powered? Or do you keep it in perpetual motion?  
You step past her, and when you do Jade turns, regarding as you do the mechanism in the center of her roof. The unfathomable skein of curls at her back billows capelike in the wind, as if wrapped in vines and startrails. She must be so used to this contraption that it takes her a moment to even register your question.  
JADE: oh  
JADE: all this?  
JADE: its powered by solar and geothermal, same as everything else in the place  
JADE: theres just a battery underneath  
JADE: honestly, the draw at this speed is so minor that it doesn't even register compared to the water heater  
ROSE: That's fascinating.

Examining the broad arm upholding the unmoving Neptune, you try to jump to touch it, kicking your legs in midair as though it will bouy your tiny frame any higher. Once you land again, with an unsophisticated grunt, you roll your eyes, and will your body to fly the extra few inches it takes for your hands to make contact with the beam. Then-- since you weigh a hundred-twenty pounds, soaking wet-- it's but trivial to heave yourself up onto it, to sit with crossed legs atop it. It doesn't even sway or judder for your whole mass.

ROSE: What does that mean, 'at this speed'?  
JADE: well  
JADE: it represents an accurate, one-to-one orbital model of the solar system.  
She points to the earth.  
JADE: it takes precisely twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, four-point-oh-nine seconds for the model earth to turn a rotation  
JADE: and to go all the way round it takes three-hundred-sixty-five days, six hours  
JADE: to account for leapdays and leapseconds yknow  
You nod, imitating comprehension.  
JADE: but its machinery  
JADE: so if i want to i can make it go much faster for demonstrations sake

Jade prattles like you're used to, comfortable fingers knitting unseen calculations on the palms of her calloused hands. How unbelievable is it that a day after such a passionate embrace, you and she can pretend at this same sort of easy conversation, as though friendship doesn't threaten to propel you forward, launch you into her arms again? You wish you knew how to divert yourself to your real goal, to speak about her, what she wants, how to navigate all of this. Even your skin feels the static charge, threatening to arc between your bodies, cling you together once more. So what can you do but listen?  
JADE: rose?  
JADE: are you listening??

Jade drifts up to your height, hips bobbing with the gentle floating weave of the air, skirt playing in the breeze and feet swaying like the pealing tongue of a bell under her broad dress.  
ROSE: Oh.  
ROSE: S-sorry.  
JADE: :/  
Her arms cross, then uncross again, fingers falling to rest at the outseam of her clothes.  
ROSE: I guess I just...  
ROSE: I suppose I'm trying to not make you uncomfortable.  
JADE: you wont  
JADE: i promise  
ROSE: Aah. What... would you like to talk about, then?  
JADE: well telling me what you ACTUALLY want would be a start?  
JADE: what brings you here? what do you need?  
ROSE: I've been learning all sorts of fun words from the poly community this morning.  
ROSE: Sorry, 'polyam'. Apparently that's the most apropos term for it.  
ROSE: My god, there are so many books about it, if you know where to look.  
ROSE: Did you know that there's a term for the opposite of jealousy?  
ROSE: 'Compersion': The nonromantic, nonsexual enjoyment of watching a partner enjoy another romantic or sexual relationship.  
JADE: hehe!  
JADE: rose i did know that!  
JADE: youre acting like ive never read a dossie easton book :p  
ROSE: Oh.  
ROSE: I had supposed you might, hm.

You pat Neptune's stocky extremity next to you, and Jade turns, lowering her backside reticently to it, albeit at a few inches' distance from you, lower enough on the arm to keep your eyes level. You try to reach out, hand coming to rest on her shoulder, but she shrinks away from you, almost flinching.

JADE: rose i uh  
JADE: i appreciate all this?  
JADE: you think im really lonely so you wanted to give me space to talk about what happened!  
JADE: but im fine  
JADE: if theres anything i can do for you though...  
Your incredulous, gaping mouth fails to utter sound, so you attempt your best significant blinks. In return, Jade twinges, expression pained.  
JADE: rose  
JADE: do you know how people see me??  
JADE: there's a word they always use, every time they hear im in a relationship, or theyre the ones im seeing  
ROSE: Homewrecker.  
Jade scrunches her body forward, chest compressed, ears flat and defeated. Her hunched arms huddle underneath her thighs.  
JADE: yep  
ROSE: And your concern is that I might see you the same way.

You roll your bangs between thumb and forefinger, staring at the little blonde tips as they curl and fray in the straw-soaked sunlight.  
ROSE: For what it's worth, I quite enjoyed yesterday.  
JADE: ...  
JADE: thats good  
JADE: im glad  
ROSE: Can I ask a question?  
ROSE: Jade, what do YOU want?  
JADE: hmmmm  
She puffs her cheeks, looking a little offput.  
JADE: i want a lot of things i think!  
JADE: i guess i dont think about them very much though?  
JADE: i want...  
JADE: to get back into gardening  
Her eyes wander off, trailing to the skyline.  
JADE: i want to try shaving my head  
JADE: i want to try on short dresses to see if they scare me too much!

Your fingers snake to your temples and you rub them with vigor, trying to sift through the words of the complaintive daemon in your skull reminding you how entirely you are failing to simply say the thing you want: _kiss me, Jade_ seems perhaps too forward a sentiment, but your whole lexicography fails you for a more nuanced communication. Any more bet-hedging and you'll be lost in an ornate brushmaze of your own design.  
ROSE: From me, Jade.  
JADE: oh  
JADE: i want you to keep being my friend  
ROSE: Oh.  
Your gut crumples like an imploded star, and you breathe deeply through your nose to avoid the sudden seasickness threatening to upend your stomach out your esophagus. Jade doesn't seem to notice, eyes focused on some particular crenellation or irregularity in the brickwork directly below her.  
ROSE: So... that's it, then?  
JADE: oh god rose  
She sounds crushed and distant, like a bee trapped in a soda can.  
JADE: all i want is to not lose you as a friend  
JADE: i KNOW i fucked up  
JADE: i KNOW youre mad at me because i kissed you and you didnt like it!!  
JADE: i KNOW kanaya must think im awful!!!  
ROSE: What!?

Jade's shoulders ripple, and she lets out a startled sob. You fly to your feet (rather literally, now standing on the beam adjacent to Jade), and put your hands to your face, unable to hold back laughter.  
ROSE: THAT's what you were afraid of!?  
JADE: nooooooooooo  
She moans, clearly believing your laughter to be at her expense. You press on, desperate to make your true intentions known.  
ROSE: I PROMISE you I enjoyed it!  
JADE: but...  
Jade turns towards you, eyes overflowing already, and buries her snout in your skirt, obscene and sludgy noises emanating from the height of about your knees.  
JADE: i still wanna be frieeeen--  
ROSE: JADE!  
JADE: *SNRRRRRNK!*  
ROSE: I'm not here to abjure you or toss you out of my life.  
ROSE: Kanaya and I resolved my concerns of impropriety last night!  
ROSE: I'm here trying to ask you OUT!

The phlegmy honking ceases immediately as the clockwork universe inside Jade's head audibly downshifts.  
JADE: wh  
JADE: what?  
You levitate yourself down again, straddle the bronzed balustrade atop which Jade sits, now facing you and gazing into your eyes with blinking confusion.  
ROSE: It's precisely what it sounds like.  
ROSE: I came to her with my proverbial toque in my tentacles and apologized if my behavior had been untoward.  
ROSE: She told me to let her know ahead of time in the future, but this morning we agreed:  
ROSE: Much like if we elected to have Kismeses on the side or the like, we decided mutually that there's no harm in allowing the strength of our marriage to become the ferrous core around which the creamy nougat of additional romances could be slathered.  
Jade narrows her eyes, but politely refrains from questioning your absurd malapropism.  
ROSE: Aah, she did have one other demand, however.  
ROSE: To quote her precisely,  
ROSE: 'I Would Not Presume To Her Affections Towards Me In The Slightest'  
ROSE: 'However One Of My Few Stipulations Regarding Your Interest In Her Is This'  
ROSE: 'That Should You Offer Her One Of Your Earth Human "Dates"'  
ROSE: 'You Ought Extend A Similar Invitation From Me As Well'.  
ROSE: Normally I'd not stand for this sort of circuitous, tortuous nonsense, but--  
JADE: yeah!!! that sounds so amazing!!!!  
JADE: oooo do you wanna do them separate or together??  
JADE: itd be a double date!!  
JADE: but just with meeee! :D :D

Jade clutches her hands to excited fists just under her chin, and spins her legs to bring her whole body in alignment, facing you. Unbidden, the grinding of metal signals the jumpstarted movement of the room-scale cosmolabe beneath you, and you hold fast to it with clutching knees as it begins to speed up. (Or perhaps it's technically an astrolabe? Perhaps the distinction's always been muddy to your mind's eye. Perhaps you can ask Jade, later.)

And you laugh, able to fathom neither her sudden mood shift nor the intergalactic revelry now stirring at Jade's command. Jade is giggling too, clearly likewise nonplussed, and with each agog glance something in her spins the grand orrery faster.

Let it whirl like teacups; let it render forth any tempest within. For Jade is in your arms again, and she is wrapped around you, rolling you closer as you press your nose to her grinning nose, as her lips seek out yours and you fulfill her murmured ask with giddy reply.

Some time later, after landing once more, Jade quiets the grand machine back to its taciturn pace, resets the mechanism to the precise angle of the current date and time. You gaze over a parapet out at the seaside rocks, watching waves crest and break with roar after pearlescent roar.

You catch your smug breath, steady your sea legs, and text the wife.

ROSE: Jade merely asks where and when.  
ROSE: And if you'd prefer to do our dates together, or separately.  
ROSE: As for me, my skirt is a little sullied...  
ROSE: But I'm looking forward to what the future holds, nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the story proper; the next chapter is annotated versions of each chapter's introductory poems.  
More stories featuring these three will come shortly, however, so look out for those!


	4. POETRY ANNOTATION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is each piece of poetry from the Notes of each chapter, with line-by-line annotations by the author. These are merely my own interpretations and opinions about each piece, and should not be considered definitive nor exhaustive understandings of any of them.

**_The Chorus in Prelude_**  
Rose's poem is in a rigid iambic tetrameter, with a strict AABB rhyme scheme. She varies neither the structure nor the rhyme at any point, and writes with basically no descriptive flair nor focus on anything but relationships and the mental states of people. Her word choice, as always, is absolutely unnecessarily verbose.

_'Was this, by turn, roman à clef?_  
_roman à clef_ is a story about real people in pseudonym. Rose is asking if this story is too true to life, or merely a series of clichés.  
_Whose hands belie this story's weft?_  
Rose is asking who supports the weft-- the crosslayer of loomed fabric-- by way of holding up the story so that it may strengthen its holder.  
_Thoughts shattered on this lonesome eve_  
_Though for her mind we are bereaved_  
Oblique reference to Jade, here-- hinting that Rose is acting in a way that will lead Jade to break her normal routines and think differently.

_Were these but echoes from her chest?_  
But then she doubles back, questioning whether or not she is just picking up on signals Jade left for her.  
_Like buxom angels smattered lest_  
As though busty seraphim were scattered by Jade through conversations to get someone to love her.  
_An idle pinky's hew and cry_  
‘Hue and cry’ is “a clamor of alarm or protest”, here deliberately misspelled as ‘hew’, that is, to split or shatter, i.e. to break up Jade’s routine or lonesome life. A 'pinky' is a baby rat, another homonym from the pinkie finger of the hand. The reference to a pinky is of herself, however, not to Jade, and she sees herself as both pathetically crying out as well as splitting Jade's life apart, another apparent duality.  
_Should pin her down as she floats by..._  
This is a key to Rose’s mindset, feeling almost pity and guilt towards Jade as she admits to trying to change her, to plucking her from the sky as she minds her own business with a single finger.

_But this sweet girl for emeralds named_  
This clarifies that this IS a love poem, and it IS for Jade.  
_Should stay by story undefamed._  
Rose hopes to not besmirch Jade's name or personality too much with her meddling, romantic or narrative.  
_I have rendered here my pawn_  
Rose laments her role in storytelling that leads Jade to act out of character. Tale as old as time-- fanfic writers can’t keep characterization precise to the original for having different ideas. Like Rose being gay for Jade.  
_Undaunted by my wife anon.'_  
Rose can't hold back her snark, saying that she's the reason Jade is willing to take bold romantic steps towards her in the first chapter despite knowing Kanaya's protectiveness. Rose is clearly aware on some level that this aspect of Jade's personality-- a cuddle animal with boundary issues, extraordinarily sweet but very needy of people-- tends to be played up in many of her splinters, including the Epilogues and much fanfiction, and with a Rose this close to the narrative level she admits a willingness to amplify that part of Jade for her own fun. Largely this doesn't end up being the case in the final story, as Rose loses control of the narrative and is set on the back foot for lack of understanding of poly dynamics and Jade herself, and it's fairly quickly proven that Rose painting Jade's nature as predatory is indeliberate, inappropriate, and inaccurate.

I think it's worth noting, here, that Rose is attempting to take credit for far more than she actually manages to influence in this story, and her narrative meddling is minimal and mostly limited to her commentary in the first chapter. Rose is driven by a need for control and not being seen as weak or lacking knowledge, so acting as an object of desire can be difficult for her, made worse by the fact that Kanaya is not the primary actor in said attraction. Characterization through poetry!

  


**_Lipstick Poem_**  
Each of Kanaya's poems masquerades as being about the 'opposing' object in the Chainsaw/Lipstick duality, both through word choice and imagistic evocation. _Lipstick Poem_ is written in free verse with no rhyme scheme, and I wanted it to exemplify Kanaya's role as gracious fashionista, brilliant feeler of feelings, and passionate woman, all of which are necessary aspects of her personality exemplified in chapter 2.

_These Chainsaw Filaments_  
Both poems start with the literal use of the other object's word, but should immediately tweak the reader that the descriptions don't follow those typical for a chainsaw-- no belch of smoke, no talk of teeth, and where function is concerned the duality between body and intention is heavily blurred.  
_Dance In My Dreams_  
Gorgeous grace, visions, sight. Kanaya sees in all things an elegance not embodied by the use of her favored weapon/tool, but rather bespoke subjects taking actions and existing beautifully.  
_The Cogwise Razor's Edge Of_  
Cogwise, here, is perhaps my least favorite word of the piece, given how strongly it evokes Dave and how little it carries in terms of imagery outside the mechanistic version of a chainsaw's motion. Lipstick, however, is frequently driven up by actuating a base to force the pigment out of a tube, so I still enjoy the image. Doubly so for lipstick's role in Homestuck as a precursor to destruction, a line drawn to know where to cut.  
_Utter Sanguine_  
Lipstick exists only ('utterly') as an object of self-expression and self-coloration, both of passions and literal troll blood colors (both of which described here with the word 'sanguine').  
_Potentiality._  
I chose this word primarily because it embodies wordiness, and it's a punchy, five-syllable word where 'potential' would simply not have had enough impact. It gets its own line simply to scream that Kanaya dreams of expressing herself through beauty, artwork, the pursuit of beautiful things, and fulfilling her purpose through graceful action.

  


**_Chainsaw Poem_**  
_Chainsaw Poem_ is in false trochaic tetrameter, morphing almost immediately into the same iambic tetrameter used by Rose. Kanaya is her own woman, but isn't afraid to follow her wife's lead. She varies the rhyme scheme as needed, as well, playing with format and form much moreso than Rose did before her. Kanaya fears nothing.  
Unlike with _Lipstick Poem_, we see demonstrated here Kanaya's wrath, anger, barely-stayed hand, and her own confusion at her ability to forgive, something not engendered in her by troll culture.

_Segment Burns Of Lipstick Tears_  
This line invites us to imagine a victim already coated in dotted lines of lipstick, weeping as they acknowledge their impending demise. 'Tears' describes both the objectified being's cries as well as the marking left by lipstick. It is easy to misread the last word as 'tear', as in 'to tear a piece of paper' or 'torn apart', but the next line tells us that this was merely a false garden path with its imposed rhyme. Kanaya sets the rules.  
_From Whose Containment Burst My Years_  
Kanaya here sets us straight on tears/years, which I anticipate makes most people confused and immediately reread the prior line and adapt to the structure imposed by this one. Kanaya's discipline is straightforward that way, and she enjoys forcing people to realize things not with her actions but the implications of her words. 'Containment' here can mean her contained wrath, or the literal tube from which lipstick emerges.  
_What Languor Weeping Stays My Arms_  
Kanaya is moved by the plight of her would-be victim, unable to move for their terror at her presence. She does not understand why she takes on this compassion, even as it stops her from executing them.  
_And Saves Those Fiends From Coming Harm_  
While she doesn't convey forgiveness (still referring to her targets as 'fiends'), Kanaya here at least acknowledges her need for reflection and compassion ahead of brutal violence. A terminating question mark is omitted so that there's no question: while Kanaya doesn't know WHY, she's doubtlessly sparing the target's life. This is an important forecasting of the tone she takes through the chapter, of her attempts to understand Rose being stymied by Rose's guilt and fear of Kanaya's unhappiness or disappointment with her (though emphatically she does NOT fear violence at Kanaya's hand).

  


**_Stalk!_**  
_Stalk!_ is written entirely in free verse, playing with the notions of Jade as predatory (a conceit I _hate_ and will be entertaining only insofar as it can be absolutely and utterly refuted and destroyed), animalistic, natural, and experiential. This is played up for several reasons: first, Rose asked Jade to write poetry that was all of these things, and second Jade loves to conform to the requests of others and mould herself to their needs. In this case the poetry she writes is the body she changes to inhabit the images others have for her, but still focuses on her first-person experiences and feelings.

_'Stalk, stalk!_  
_Through reedstalks I creep, deathstalk in repose_  
The repetition of R and S sounds remind the reader of low-crouched, stealthy predators, prepared to strike, with the titular word 'stalk' serving both to describe plants and the action of a hunter's pursuit.  
_And for equal measures of bloodlust I have reigned_  
This line almost fits a traditional rhyme scheme, putting the reader into almost the same trance as traditional poetry, letting you sway with its even rhythm...  
_For without my sweet prey's remittance_  
...and into the lull of a line with few punchy, stressed syllables...  
_My body will stay lean and boned and sinewy._  
...before using rapid stressed words to describe the consequence of failure and create a sense of urgency.  
_Deerstalk among drake weed and through thrush rushes and cattails at water's edge by midnight._  
But a hunt is long, and requires constant attention and focus to not spook prey, so we return to the notion of nature and the image of a midnight pool rather than concern for our wellbeing should we fail. Jade is a master of controlling her emotions to get done what needs to be done, even at the expense of her mental health. She self-soothes throughout the poem with her use of 'hush' sounds, the soft hiss of 'thrush rushes' and repetition.  
_Stalk.'_


End file.
